Hi I have many 35mm negatives and Slides that I would like to convert to digital. What is the best way do do this bearing in mind that quality will be of upmost importance. Is there someone that offers this service or is it possible to hire a scanner
OK... many is subjective. As is 'quality'. So lets offer advice by example.
I have 'many' 35mm negs, and am workingmy way through digitising them all.
My 'Many' is many thousands, my own halide archive spanning twenty-thirty years or so, and the add-ons... "Oh! You can scan negatives? I found a LOAD when we cleared out your Grans when she died... LOVE to see whats on them....." and a card-board box gets added to the stack... BE WARNED.
So, starting with my own negs; I bought a neg scanner in 2000, at the time, because I didn't want to pay stupid money for what were at the time rather low resolution Digital Cameras. I started scanning negs after work each evening... but gave up. On an old Pentium II computer, even though I had a 'faster' SCSII scanner... the work flow was about an hour a strip... 4 negs JUST to get them onto the computer, let-alone do much with them. AND scanning to get decent quality, we're talking 100Mb per picture... and still are.
3 years ago I bought a newer scanner; not the best, but it's 'reasonable', and computers now are a bit faster and have more hard drive space. Work-Rate getting a batch of images from the book to the hard-drive? Well, if I can do 250 in a day, I'm doing pretty well. 8 hours? that's 30 images scanned, per hour. And 250 is about all I can do in one batch, as that's 25 Gb or five DVD's worth of raw images, and any more, and my computer would clog up moaning about memory.
Those raw, high quality scans, then have to be post-processed; each file opened up and the image assessed; you do get to see it in 'preview' but at 1/8 screen size its a bit course... so open each one up, look at it; usually add a course exposure compensation on it to make it a bit easier to review.... THEN...... we have to set about looking at any image defects; negs don't always go through the scanner straight, you can get them a bit skew in the holder, and they may need to be re-aligned or slightly cropped.
No matter how diligent you are storing your negs, and cleaning thr scanner, the scanner trap, the neg-holder and the negative itself... when you look at your image full screen, you undoubtedly discover a fair few dust motts or finger marks left in the image to be spotted out.
And that's if the neg is in good condition.... mine stored from processing in pro 'archive' binders are pretty good... but not always; and ones that have come to me in the chemists sleeves, envelopes or shoe boxes, have been water damaged, scratched, torn, or covered in filth that has embedded itself in the emulsion.... mounted slides, stored in the projector caroucelles in the loft probably presenting some of the WORST preserved images to work from.
Old addage, crud in gives crud out - you cant make a silk purse out of a sows ear.
But... using modern photo-editing software, you can do a lot to 'restore' an old degraded photo, but only within limits, and depends on the degree of degredation, and the nature of it, as well as the subject.
And of course... 'Best' you can hope for, is a picture as good as the original.
You get photo's that are over or under exposed; out of focus, or got thumbs accross the lens... you ent going to make them any better.
So; you take your raw scanned image file, assess it; if you had a well preserved neg to start with, cleaned it, cleaned the trap, and got a clean scan, AND it was reasonably well exposed to start with.... you then maybe need do little more to it, but save with compression to bring the file size down to something more reasonable; maybe 1Meg or so. And move on.
If its not so co-operative, and the negs not in good condition, and not really restorable, could be scrap; X it out and chuck it away.
In between, how much time you spend on it, depends on how bad it is and how much attention you want to spend on it.
250 Negs scanned in one batch? On average t-minutes per image to get them on the computer; then, working through them, as and when, image at a time? Maybe another 3 minutes per picture... on average.. with a pool of 'usually' better preserved negs and better initial images on them.
That gets them to archive standard; at scanner resolution of 5ooo x 3ooo (aprox) pixels, in 24 bit colour depth. That is about as big and roughly the quality of a mid to high end digital compact camera, maybe almost as good as an entry level digital SLR..... But, no where NEAR the potential Image Quality that is on the original negative; which is a 'full-frame' sensor, the preserve of high-end Digital SLR's, and while it might have been a cheap bit of film, and exposed in a plastic-lens instamatic camera, could just as easily have been a decent enough bit of film, even if cheap, and if by luck or good management was exposed accurately, and through even half decent lens as good as anything you might get out of a high end modern pro-camera.
So... you get something 'approximating' to the image quality of a better Digital Compact camera... If you use a half decent scanner.
Use a mini-lab service, like ASDA... and I do for films I shoot now.... Costs an extra £1 to have them 'on disc'... and their machine scans are about 1/2 the resolution; 1800x1200 pixels... about as good as an entry to medium level digi-compact... but quick, easy, cheap and convenient, for MOST use... which is probably the crux.
Most of my archive as I work through it is being up-loaded to Face-Book, so that the family can all see all the old photo's; people no longer with us; family holidays or parties long gone, kids before they grew-up etc etc etc.
Sizing for web-display; I have to shrink my archive images from whatever they are; 5000px on longest edge on my scans, or 1800px on ASDA scans, and re-size them to something under 800px. About a 1/4 size of original scan, or 1/2 -2/3 a commercial lab-scan.
Even those 'shrunken' resolution files are pretty 'OK' for acceptable 6x4" prints; and a couple of remote family members have down-loaded some of my web-pics and got them printed at thier local mini-lab and apparently they are more than acceptable.... though daftly, if they had asked, I could have e-mailed them the archive resolution files to make prints from.
And, ASDA, local mini-lab, making prints from the films I shoot these days do just that; the 6x4 prints I get in the packet aren't produced optically from exposing the paper to light projected through the negative, but 2nd hand, by optically printing the 1800x1200 digital file, scanned from neg.
BUT, if you want to go for ultimate image quality; you need to start looking at high end scanners, possibly pro-grade scanners and spending the time and attention to detail running it to get the best from it..... to... what? What would you want such high resolution scans for?
You may have a reason; but probably be either incredibly large full frame enlargements, or large scale, and by that anything over 10x8 or A4 sized 'sectional' enmlargements of portions of the frame.
So, where does this take us?
First, dont get your hopes up too high. If your old negs have sat in a dusty drw for thirty years, they could be rather kblugged and you are unlikely to get great images off them IF there was a great image there to begin with.
Second; if you had truly wonderful images on your negs... then the practical limits of scanning, is not likely to get as good as the film could have originally captured. Digital is condensing the 'quality' around the median, 'acceptable quality level' and practically, about as good, give or take as you would get from a mid-range £100 Digital compact is about that median.
Third; if You want to DIY.. then do the maths on the scanner cost. At 50p a scan, a 'cheaper' but useful scanner costing about £80 will need you to scan about 200 negs to pay for itself. Enthusuasts kit in the £500 range, 1000 negs. BUT reckon on probably 10 minutes per image processing time, on top.
Spare week-end with NOTHING else to do? Lets say 20 hours sat at the computer; to process maybe 100-150 images.... IF you are organised and familiar with the software and aren't wasting time reading the 'help' files or fiddling with sliders trying to work out how to get rid of a colour cast or how to sharpen a soft scan.
DIY it, and YOU assure the quality level to whatever standard you deem acceptable; and you are likely to get better images than you would using a bulk commercial service..... BUT takes a lot of time, if not so much money, and it Is a steep learning curve.
Back to the questions; how many is 'many', and how high is high quality?
And questions you didn't ask, but key to them both:
1/ Fitness for Purpose - what do you want digitised images for? What will be the display medium; as this will inform what is the most apropriate 'quality' to go for.
2/ How much time & money do you have to devote to this project? And where's it best placed?
3/ What 'kit' do you have to start with? You need a computer that is reasonably fast to be able to scan; it has to be compatible with a scanner; you need compatible software, and you need a LOT of hard drive space as well as a decent monitor to see what you are doing.
Any holes or weaknesses in your existing kit before you begin, is likely to result in a lot of hidden costs as you have to start upgrading stuff, finding hard drive space, buying a DVD burner to archive off scans, buying external auxiliary Hard-Drive to make available 'working' storage space etc etc etc. Having to buy software to post-process raw scans.... yes most scanners come with some, but may not be more than bare minimum to get image off neg, or of limited use making best of that image.
4/ Whats your Post-Processing level at the moment? If you are familiar with Photo-Shop of other image editing software, tweeking raw scans may be a doddle; but if you have to learn to use the software first, could be a very steep learning curve.
There's a lot to think about.
